Public Employee Union Dues / Applying restrictions to political contributions / A means to defund critics

Susan Solomon, Susan Cieutat

Published
4:00 am PDT, Tuesday, October 11, 2005

As California voters, we are pretty familiar with initiative campaigns. We know many initiatives are not what they seem to be; too many have a hidden agenda.

Remember Proposition 226? It was sponsored by then-Gov. Pete Wilson and placed on the ballot in 1998 by insurance mogul J. Patrick Rooney and national conservative leader Grover Norquist to weaken unions by silencing the voices of workers in the political process, yet its Big Business backers claimed it was designed to help workers.

As California teachers and nurses, we have been targeted once again. Some of the same millionaires and CEOs who brought us Prop. 226 now have teamed up with Eureka millionaire mortgage broker Robin Arkley and Frank Baxter, founder of the conservative Club for Growth, and have now placed Proposition 75, a similar initiative with the same hidden agenda, on the November ballot.

Working with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's political team, Lewis K. Uhler, a former John Birch Society member and long time corporate advocate, designed this deceptive measure to make it easier for the governor and his Big Business pals to cut school funding, heath care and public safety. It slaps new governmental restrictions on teachers, nurses, firefighters and police that apply to no one else -- not the governor's campaign contributors, who are backing the measure, not Big Oil or the tobacco or drug companies. Proposition 75 unfairly creates two sets of rules for political contributions. That is why campaign watchdog groups, including the League of Women Voters of California, oppose it.

By targeting workers, the balance of power in the political process would further shift to big corporations, which already outspend workers by 24 to 1, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

Why does Prop. 75 target only public employees such as us? Because we are effective, vocal advocates for our schools, our patients and our communities.

Earlier this year, California teachers spoke out when the governor broke his promise to repay the $2 billion he borrowed from the education budget.

California nurses took the governor to court when he tried to roll back the hospital staffing law that protects patients. California firefighters and police officers objected to the governor's plans to eliminate survivor benefits for family members when an officer or firefighter is killed in the line of duty.

Prop. 75's restrictions would make it harder for teachers to protect their students from the governor's cuts to education funding. The initiative also gives him broad powers to make mid-year school budget cuts without consulting anyone. It would make it harder for nurses to speak out on behalf of patients, for better health care or for more affordable prescription drugs. It would make it harder for law enforcement officers to fight the governor's agenda to undermine public safety and roll back retirement protections.

Under Prop. 75, our schools, health-care system, and fire and police stations will be under the budgetary control of the governor and his corporate campaign contributors. Without teachers, nurses, firefighters and police speaking out to protect our communities, our schools and our health-care centers, who will?

Prop. 226 failed in 1998, due to overwhelming opposition from workers. We saw through the measure's deceptive agenda and false claims. Prop. 226 was not about protecting workers' rights then, and Prop. 75 is not about protecting workers' rights now.

We are already protected by federal law and a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that says no public employee can be forced to join a union and contribute to political campaigns. Prop. 75 is not designed to help us; it was designed by the governor's corporate backers to silence their critics.

To learn more

This initiative requires members of public-employee unions to give consent individually to use their dues for political activities.